By Carl Potts, Chuck Dixon, Alan Zelenetz Larry Stroman, Mark Farmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-84023-811-2
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Above and Beyond and Captivating… 8/10
During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced an astounding proliferation of new titles and companies in the wake of the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers able to firm-sale straight to retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from non-specialised shops, the industry was able to support less generic titles and creators could experiment without losing their shirts.
In response Marvel developed a line of creator-owned properties at the height of the subsequent publishing explosion, launching a number of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was dubbed Epic Comics and the results reshaped the industry.
One of the earliest hits was a darkly compelling science fiction serial with a beautifully simple core concept: the Foreign Legion of Space (and no, it isn’t at all similar to Jack Williamson’s epochal 1934 creation the Legion of Space).
Created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco, Alien Legion debuted in its own on-going series in April 1984, running for 20 issues (until 1987) plus an oversized Marvel Graphic Novel (see Alien Legion: A Grey Day to Die), before re-booting into a second, 18 issue volume spanning October 1987 to August 1990.
After that the tales were told in intermittently released miniseries and one-shots (long-since collected in one volume as Alien Legion Tenants of Hell).
The “Bloody Bospors†have come and gone ever since, jumping from Checker Books to Dark Horse Comics and Titan – who will be carefully compiling the series into collected omnibuses – and there is, of course, a movie in the pipeline…
This particular pocket-sized compendium re-presents the first dozen dark sagas from volume two and comes with a handy ‘Rollcall’ of key characters before recounting The Story So Far in ‘Alien Legion Unit History: Hellscape’.
The saga resumes in ‘Dead and Buried’ by writers Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Chuck Dixon, illustrated by Larry Stroman & Randy Emberlin…
The Legion was founded to keep the peace of the Tophan Galactic Union, a million worlds spread over three galaxies, policed by a broad brotherhood of outcast militant sentients united by a need to belong and a desire to escape their pasts. For such beings honour and tradition are (purportedly) the only things holding them together in a ruling system riven with political intrigue and double-dealing, and where ordinary decent citizens universally despise the battalions of death-dealing outcasts.
After years of holding back the forces of chaos and anarchy across the stellar regions united into an overarching Galarchy, Nomad Squadron were dispatched as part of a vast Legion armada to “pacify†the Quaalians; a warlike and unpredictable culture perpetually causing trouble from their strategically critical star-system midway between the Tophan Union and its ideological opposite the Harkilon Empire.
The mission went tragically wrong and thousands of troops were trapped on a planet of raving maniacs dubbed “Hellscape†and expediently written off by the Legion.
Now, as the story opens two years later, Major Sarigar can stand the situation no longer and resigns his commission so that he can go after the Legionnaires he was ordered to abandon. After a violent period of readjustment he finally makes contact with fabulously wealthy businessman Guy Montroc – whose son Torie is amongst the missing – and gains enough resources to sneak into the embargoed border regions…
When he finds evidence of survivors and is almost murdered, Sarigar realises he has no choice but to break the Legion quarantine and go to Quaal itself…
Dixon assumes the role of sole scripter in ‘Fragments’ which flashes back to the disastrous raid and details the fall of the Legion forces before focusing on serpentine seeker Sarigar as he begins covertly exploring the deadly tinderbox world with the reluctant assistance of a Quaalian guide sold to him by a corrupt Legion prison officer.
The horrific trek across the barren landscape proves miraculously successful as Sarigar eventually finds the younger Montroc and grifting ne’er-do-well Jugger Grimrod in a cave complex where, against all odds, they have survived for two years. Implausibly united again, the comrades search together but their next discoveries are appalling and unhappy.
Falling into dejection, Sarigar is reinvigorated when he receives a psychic call from telepathic medic Meico but after one final day of hunting the former Major reluctantly prepares to take his exhausted, traumatised charges off-planet when a final scan reveals two more survivors: hulking amazon Tamara and cruelly maimed aging veteran Zeerod.
Tamara has reverted to pure ferocious savagery and, as Meico dutifully attempts to psionically restore her mental balance, a band of ravaging Quaalians find them…
Forced to fight for their lives again, the lost Legionnaires brutally answer the ‘Call to Battle’ and win their way off world. In the aftermath however the returned warriors are not considered heroes but an extreme embarrassment and only deft political manoeuvring by Sarigar and maverick general Gokk keep them out of jail or worse.
A solution is found when the re-instated major and his five pitiful survivors are designated the core of a rapid-deployment penal battalion styled Force Nomad: a suicide squad to be peopled by the worst and most incorrigible, expendable troublemakers in the Galarchy…
With no where else to go and no one else they trust, the battered coterie of sociopaths all sign on and soon ‘The Lucky and the Dead’ (inked by new permanent embellisher Mark Farmer) are assessing their newest comrades in arms before being dispatched to stop a colossal asteroid tricked out as a cataclysmic gun platform by the Harkilons and aimed at the heart of the Ophides system…
Although ultimately successful, Force Nomad lists its first fatalities before the mission concludes…
‘The Ditch’ finds the squad attempting a lightning-strike against a particle gun on a small fortified moon when the mission goes wrong and Grimrod is again left behind. Left to his own devices the despicable reprobate infiltrates the Harkilon fortress and uncovers a treacherous alliance between the terrorist empire and the Galarchy’s most upstanding trader nation, the Orestans.
In the subsequent battle, Jugger’s frantic fight to save his own skin leads to him accidentally capturing the entire installation and, as shining hero of the hour, securing the worst fate he can possibly imagine: promotion to Captain…
It a situation he cannot tolerate and in ‘Xenos’, whilst executing his first command mission, he takes the opportunity to rectify the situation when a Harkilon bio-weapon his ship is ferrying to a science centre breaks. After it destroys his crew and he again saves the day, Grimrod punches out the general who congratulates him…
Demoted and sentenced to prison, Jugger rots all but forgotten as, on training world Arrios IX, Torie, Tamara and new Nomad Tonk begin drilling the latest Force candidates in ‘The Bite’. The work is hard enough but takes a deadly turn when an infiltrator rigs the automated assault course with lethal ordnance.
…And in the Legion lock-up Line Star III, more assassins target new inmate Grimrod, but have utterly underestimated his survival instincts and appetite for destruction…
Having survived the carnage on Arrios, Tamara and Torie recuperate on his father’s high security estate, but the mystery assassins follow and nearly kill Montroc senior in ‘Duty Elsewhere’ before lethally capable Tamara ends them.
Realising the scope of the conspiracy and the reason why Nomad personnel are all targets, the wounded plutocrat engages his top industrial spy to get to the bottom of the plot.
Nakhira Doomhar is a cyber-enhanced super-thief who loves a challenge and soon she is hot on the trail of the would-be killers’ employers…
As Grimrod is posted back to Force Nomad, Nakhira meets with Torie and Tamara, leading them to an Orestan deep-space data relay for a spot of espionage. The staggering results reveal not a few rogue traders dealing with the enemy, but a wholesale treaty alliance which could tear apart the Union…
Not knowing who to trust, Torie and Sarigar contact General Gokk in ‘Scalpel’, hoping his eminence and political connections will get the information to the right people without causing a disaster. Instead the old warrior takes executive action and launches a massive covert raid on an Orestan trade planet near the Harkilon border.
The surgical strike for proof is compromised from the start and the Legion forces easily repulsed…
Whilst Tamara and Nakhira take their data-raiding act into the very heart of the Orestes homeworld, their comrades are being shot down over Braal VII by a heavy force of Harkilons and the treacherous Orestans are filing charges against Gokk in the Galarchy courts…
‘Biology Lesson’ finds ultimate survivor Grimrod and the remains of Force Nomad prisoners of both the Orestans and Harkilons, used as playthings and slave labour. However, the gloating horrors have vastly underestimated their captives and placed far too much faith in the monster watchdogs they have set over the Legionnaires. Before long the brutal scrapper has led his troops back into Galarchy space and straight into the trial of the millennium…
The conniving Orestans have forced a public hearing with Gokk on trial for violating the War Charters of the Tophan Union, and Jugger is a very nervous and ‘Hostile Witness’. As the only living being to have seen Harkilons dealing with Orestans, he is a crucial defence component and knows there’s a great big target painted on his back…
Whilst Jugger sweats in the palaces of cosmic justice, Torie and Tamara lead a picked team into the bowels of Harkilon space to capture evidence that will clear the Legion stalwarts and expose the conspiracy forever. All they have to do is take it and get back to safety whilst an entire evil empire tries to stop them…
With the multipart intrigue finally resolved, this splendidly manic chronicle concludes on a lighter note with some ‘Dorty Fighting’ as Grimrod humiliates the wrong recruit during a training session on unfair unarmed combat and is soon running for his life from a sustained succession of attempted murders…
Rocket-paced, wryly sardonic, exotic and powerfully funny in the classic 2000AD manner, this captivating collection is crammed to the gills with explosive action and includes a cover gallery and creator biographies to complete the perfect package of mayhem-laced cynical space opera – which renders this chronicle “unmissable†in my book. Alien Legion is ® & © 2014 Carl Potts. All rights reserved.